


Dima

by dinosaurdragon



Series: Missing Moments from TWotS [9]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Dalish Elves, Gen, Messenges, tbh idk what to tag this with
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 05:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7494855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinosaurdragon/pseuds/dinosaurdragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dima and Amir Lavellan are told about the beginning and the end of the Fifth Blight by two different hunters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dima

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theramblinggirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theramblinggirl/gifts).



> okay so i couldn't get up a chapter for kirkwall (damn i feel like i'm saying that a lot, i'm so sorry), but this is something that introduces characters youll get to see in, like... um, probably another 100k words. somewhere between the storypart which will come after kirkwall and the breach (which, somewhat obviously, is the storypart that will cover inquisition). not sure if amir and dima will appear in the former or the latter first, but they will appear, so.
> 
> sarah, my dear, i hope you like this. your first peak at dima.

Dima was sixteen when the Blight began. She’d just become first to Keeper Deshanna of Clan Lavellan, and was very proud of that fact. Her brother, Amir, was proud, too, though it had hardly been a difficult decision. The clan had three mages in total, and Lanel was simply not good with people. A First had to be good with people to be a good First. At least, that’s what Keeper Deshanna believed.

Amir was one of Lanel’s few friends, and Dima had been completely prepared for him to be upset on Lanel’s behalf… but instead, both boys seemed happy with the situation. Of course, Amir was only twelve, and Lanel was twenty, but it seemed to make little difference. However good Dima was with people (mostly through great effort), Amir was better.

So it was no surprise that Amir managed to befriend the young hunter who visited their clan in 9:30 Dragon. And if Amir made a friend, Dima did, too. They invited the hunter, Fenarel, to eat with them one evening, and took advantage of the time to ask him why his clan, which usually roamed the Fereldan outskirts, was coming so far north.

“There’s a Blight,” he answered, completely grim. The firelight illuminated only half his face, and the other fell to the shadows.

“A Blight?” Amir echoed, eyes wide.

“It’s been so long since the last one,” Dima said. “Are you sure? Could it have just been a few darkspawn?” A Blight was never anything good, and if clans were already fleeing north—though Fenarel’s was the first they’d seen—it might be wise to do the same. Not that they could go too far north; the Free Marches were already only dubiously safe for Dalish clans. Too much closer to Tevinter… She didn’t want to think about it.

Fenarel made a face like he wanted to snap at her, but he didn’t. “Yes,” he said, voice taut like a bowstring ready to fire. “There was a Grey Warden at our camp. One of our hunters died already, and another was taken away to join the Wardens.”

“Ir abelas, lethallin,” Amir said. His bottom lip was almost quivering. Somehow, he’d always been so very affected by grief, even when not his own.

“Ma serannas.” Fenarel looked away, towards the shadows, and Dima lost sight of what expression he made. “Theron was too sick to stay with us. Blightsickness. The Grey Warden said that if he made it through their Joining ritual, he’d live. Him and the mage they found.”

Dima wanted to offer her own sympathies, but wasn’t sure how. She could at least lend a listening ear, and maybe a few words of wisdom that had once been told to her. “Dalish are strong. Whatever this ritual is, I’m sure your clansman will survive.”

Fenarel didn’t look at her, but he did nod. “I hope so.”

“They found someone else with him?” Amir asked, catching as he always did on the details.

“Yes. A mage. Not from our clan.” Fenarel sighed. “He said his name was Vir’era. Master Ilen made a staff for him before Warden Duncan took him and Theron away.”

“So both were sick?”

Fenarel looked back towards them, the light now catching all of his face. His eyes still seemed dull, not quite reflecting all of the firelight. “Yes. They may still die. If we are lucky, they won’t. If we are lucky, they and the other Grey Wardens may stop this Blight before it begins.”

“Are they already trying?” Dima asked. If they were already trying, then she was fairly sure that meant—

“Have the Archdemon been sighted?” Amir whispered. He had gone through a phase where he’d been captivated by the idea of Grey Wardens, back when he’d first learned that the last Warden to end a Blight had been an elf. For a while, it had seemed he may grow up to join the order. But he was only eight at the time, and had eventually moved on to other interests, though he still carried great respect for the Wardens.

“I don’t know,” Fenarel said. He looked down at the empty bowl in his hands.

They didn’t ask more questions about the Blight from him.

 

Dima was seventeen when the Blight ended. Keeper Deshanna had refused to move the clan further north, saying that the halla seemed content enough here, so they would stay, too. In retrospect, it was a wise move, but at the time it had seemed little more than stubborn.

They heard the news from a hunter from a different clan, much like they’d heard of the Blight’s beginning, but this time it was brought as a deliberate message. Amir didn’t get to pull this hunter to the side, because everyone wanted to hear what she had to say.

“I was there,” she told them, her eyes bright and hair shining in the firelight after a celebratory dinner had been eaten, “at the final battle. The Battle of Denerim, the shems are calling it now. My whole clan—all the hunters, and our Keeper and First and Second—we were all there, fighting the darkspawn with shemlen and durgen’len. One shem even saved my life. A genlock had cornered me with its axe…”

Dima and Amir listened to the tale with awe. Shemlen and elvhen, working together so seamlessly… It was like a dream. It sounded impossible, but this hunter spoke the words the way a truth was spoken. Dima didn’t hear any lies, and she was usually very good at that. (One had to be, when one was going to be a Keeper someday.)

The tale was breathtaking. After a while, the hunter had to switch to recounting what she’d heard from others, saying that she hadn’t been up on the fortress where the Archdemon had been slain, but a friend of hers from a different clan had. “There were two Dalish Grey Wardens,” she said, eyes bright and shining. “One was a mage and the other was a hunter.”

_Theron and Vir’era,_ Dima thought, remembering the names Fenarel had mentioned less than a year ago. _They lived after all._ She was delighted by this, and delighted even further as the heroics of these two Dalish were relayed to her.

“I fought with them for a little while, actually, before they went to the fortress. I don’t know if they—well, I never said anything to them, so I don’t think they even noticed me. The hunter, Theron, he was probably the best shot I’ve seen. He took down three hurlocks in two seconds, once. And the mage, Vir’era—he and another elf, a city girl who was also a Warden, they made a blizzard that let us breathe for a minute and move the dead so we could fight better when the horde reconvened. It was amazing.

“My friend told me, up on the fortress, eventually all the Wardens were there, fighting the Archdemon with everyone else. She was right by Theron when the Archdemon was wounded badly enough to fall, and she watched him kill it. And he lived! Theron Mahariel is the Hero of Ferelden now—the Warden who ended the Fifth Blight, a Dalish!”

That night, Amir and the other children danced long after they should have been asleep, and Dima played her crwth until she thought her fingers might fall off.

Somewhere, wherever they were, she hoped Theron and Vir’era were resting now, as they deserved—and she hoped that Fenarel would soon hear what his clansman had accomplished, and know that his clan’s sacrifice was not in vain.

**Author's Note:**

> for those of you that don't know what a crwth is (probably most, since i didn't even know until like... two weeks ago lol), it's an ancient welsh instrument that kind of disappeared for a while and has since been more or less reconstructed. i figured that was more appropriate for a dalish character than a lute lol. also they sound p damn cool? so.
> 
> [here's a video of one being played.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcdXN7Wl0fY)


End file.
